Commands (Gatsby CLI)

The Gatsby command line tool (CLI) is the main entry point for getting up and running with a Gatsby application and for using functionality including like running a development server and building out your Gatsby application for deployment.

We provide similar documentation available with the gatsby-cli README, and our cheat sheet has all the top CLI commands ready to print out.

How to use gatsby-cli

The Gatsby CLI (gatsby-cli) is packaged as an executable that can be used globally. The Gatsby CLI is available via npm and should be installed globally by running npm install -g gatsby-cli to use it locally.

Run gatsby --help for full help.

You can also use the package.json script variant of these commands, typically exposed for you with most starters. For example, if you want to make the gatsby develop command available in your application, open up package.json and add a script like so:

API commands

new

Usage

The CLI will run an interactive shell asking for these options before creating a Gatsby site for you:

Creating a site from a starter

To create a site from a starter instead, run the command while immediately specifying your site name and starter URL:

Note that this will not prompt you to create a custom setup, but only clone the starter from the URL you specified.

Arguments

Note: The site-name should only consist of letters and numbers. If you specify a ., ./ or a <space> in the name, gatsby new will throw an error.

Examples

• Create a Gatsby site named my-awesome-site using the default starter:

• Create a Gatsby site named my-awesome-blog-site, using gatsby-starter-blog:

See the Gatsby starters docs for more details.

develop

Once you’ve installed a Gatsby site, go to the root directory of your project and start the development server:

gatsby develop

Options

Follow the Local HTTPS guide to find out how you can set up an HTTPS development server using Gatsby.

Preview changes on other devices

You can use the Gatsby develop command with the host option to access your dev environment on other devices on the same network, run:

Then the terminal will log information as usual, but will additionally include a URL that you can navigate to from a client on the same network to see how the site renders.

Note: To access Gatsby on your local machine, use either http://localhost:8000 or the “On Your Network” URL.

build

At the root of a Gatsby site, compile your application and make it ready for deployment:

gatsby build

Options

In addition to these build options, there are some optional build environment variables for more advanced configurations that can adjust how a build runs. For example, setting CI=true as an environment variable will tailor output for dumb terminals.

serve

At the root of a Gatsby site, serve the production build of your site for testing:

gatsby serve

Options

info

At the root of a Gatsby site, get helpful environment information which will be required when reporting a bug:

gatsby info

Options

clean

At the root of a Gatsby site, wipe out the cache (.cache folder) and public directories:

gatsby clean

This is useful as a last resort when your local project seems to have issues or content does not seem to be refreshing. Issues this may fix commonly include:

• Stale data, e.g. this file/resource/etc. isn’t appearing
• GraphQL error, e.g. this GraphQL resource should be present but is not
• Dependency issues, e.g. invalid version, cryptic errors in console, etc.
• Plugin issues, e.g. developing a local plugin and changes don’t seem to be taking effect

plugin

Run commands pertaining to gatsby plugins.

docs

gatsby plugin docs

Directs you to documentation about using and creating plugins.

Repl

Get a Node.js REPL (interactive shell) with context of your Gatsby environment:

gatsby repl

Gatsby will prompt you to type in commands and explore. When it shows this: gatsby >

You can type in a command, such as one of these:

babelrc

components

dataPaths

getNodes()

nodes

pages

schema

siteConfig

staticQueries

When combined with the GraphQL explorer, these REPL commands could be very helpful for understanding your Gatsby site’s data.

For more information, check out the Gatsby REPL documentation.

Disabling colored output

In addition to the explicit --no-color option, the CLI respects the presence of the NO_COLOR environment variable (see no-color.org).

How to change your default package manager for your next project?

When you use gatsby new for the first time to create a new project, you are asked to choose your default package manager between yarn and npm.

Once you’ve made your choice, the CLI won’t ask for your preference again for any subsequent project.

If you want to change this for your next project you have to edit the config file created automatically by the CLI. This file is available on your system at: ~/.config/gatsby/config.json

In it you’re going to see something like this.

Edit your packageManager value, save and you’re good to go for your next project using gatsby new.